The Toxic Idealist -- How to Heal from a Life of Perfectionism

Perfectionism can have crippling effects on your life — on your emotional health, on your relationships, on your career, and more.

Perfectionism is NOT the need for everything to be perfect.

Perfectionism means that you have a vision of how things “should” be, and if reality does not match your vision, you crumble.

A lot of perfectionists believe themselves to be idealists. They double-down on their perfectionism and think it’s a good thing. They reason, “Yea, I am a perfectionist. I don’t settle for anything less than the ideal. And that’s something awesome about me!”

However if you can’t contain the reality that is, and you fall apart when your life/relationship/child/society doesn’t fit into the picture you’ve painted of what it ought to be, then you’re not an idealist (i.e. someone with lofty ideals). You’re actually a perfectionist (i.e. someone who can’t function if the reality doesn’t match the way you’d like it to be). And it should come as no surprise that perfectionism brings misery to the perfectionist and those who reside with him or her.

So what is the remedy for Perfectionism?

The way a person goes from being a perfectionist to being a non-perfectionist is by learning the art of Containment.

Containment means that you expand yourself to contain the reality that is, even if it doesn’t match your vision of how you think things really should be.

So how do you build this containment muscle?

By introducing disharmony into your life.

Here are three exercises:

1. Exposure — If you’re a neat freak that insists that you’re incapable of going to bed without all the dishes being cleaned, leave one dirty dish in the sink (or on the floor - <gasp!>) to slowly expose yourself to the disharmony that’s been debilitating, and build up an inner state of resilience.

2. Delay Satisfaction — Bring food out of the oven, put it on the table in front of you, smell its aromas, and let it sit there without eating it for ten minutes. By waiting to resolve the disharmony that’s developing within your palate and your appetite, you build inner strength and resolve.

3. Limbo — If you get back from a first date and you’d like to know if the guy/gal would like to go out again. Instead of impatiently jumping to get an answer right away, sit in the not-knowing for a little while. This expands your capacity to contain the uncomfortable feeling of open-ended situations.

By introducing disharmony into your life and leaning into it, instead of running away from it, you build resilience. By being uncomfortable without needing to find a way to immediately end that discomfort, you build inner strength.

The more we flex this muscle of containment, the less we find ourselves avoiding awkward situations, and the more willing we are to initiate courageous interactions and conversations.

When you build this muscle of Containment, your life changes.
You stop shattering under the pressure of people and situations that don’t fit into your vision of how they should be. And you become a person who functions, tolerates, accepts, and collaborates with a reality/person/spouse/child/world that doesn’t match your “shoulds”.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Couples Counseling
• Dating
• Depression
• Emotion regulation
• Inner child work
• Life Coaching
• Premarital Counseling
• Relationships